The whole point of hacker news is to converse curiously. It's stated clearly in the guidelines. Here is a person encouraging curiosity and getting down voted.

Why is the dismissive non-curious comment not getting down voted?

Am I in denial about whether the curios community still exists here?

To recognize the topic on hand... When a native community shares an oral tradition that accurately describes something that's been under water for 12+ thousand years despite not having the technology to map the sea floor that's pretty strong evidence in the accuracy of their ability to persist accuracy through oral tradition.

Parent is entirely valid in encouraging curiosity in this subject to anyone who is dismissive of it.

ggp isn't being dismissive or incurious. They say they are skeptical of the reasoning used in the science.org article, but are still open to the accepting the conclusion. Does being curious mean you aren't allowed to question anything? gp is probably being downvoted for dismissing ggp's concerns with a trite "please educate yourself" and not actually referencing anything to read. Telling someone else they are wrong and to go find evidence to support your own opposing view may technically be "encouraging curiosity" but it's certainly not curious itself.